Olexander Polyanchuk is a mindfulness teacher and previous participant of OMF’s ‘Mindfulness: Teaching in the Workplace’ 8-month training course. In this blog post, Olexander shares his experience of the training while living in Kyiv, Ukraine.

*Trigger Warning: War in Ukraine*

Dear Readers,

Let me introduce myself. My name is Olexander Polyanchuk. I live in Kyiv, Ukraine. I will describe my story how I came to mindfulness training and studies with the OMF and the benefits I acquired as result of my study.

My professional background is around 18 years in executive recruitment and working in corporate settings. After my graduation in Ukraine, I left for the UK and studied English while living in London for several years. After coming back to Ukraine at the age of 27, I set up my own executive search company.

From an outside point of view, I was very successful and earned good money but inside myself I was feeling more and more unhappy.

Throughout these years I worked very hard. My credo was “doing things at the edge of one’s abilities.” My work schedule was always full. I had constant meetings, deadlines, new ambitious projects etc. I focused more on my ambitious goals, work, high scale projects, but I didn’t pay any attention to my health, my mental state, my emotions and my soul aspirations. Nobody taught me how to do that.

From an outside point of view, I was very successful and earned good money but inside myself I was feeling more and more unhappy.

In 2019 I came to total emotional exhaustion and found myself in hospital as my body was very weak and lots of health problems appeared. It took me couple of years to recover from that unhealthy work style.

After that experience, I searched constantly for new ways of health recovery and balance. I searched how to learn to work effectively and at the same time to have peace of mind and be happy. “Accidently” I found and went through an MBSR course. I was so inspired by the course that continued my mindfulness studies and finally qualified as MBSR mindfulness teacher.

But there was the problem that corporate settings, where I planned to teach mindfulness, are completely different from public settings. I knew that in corporate settings there are lots of specifics around how to successfully teach mindfulness. There should be a special focus on programs content, audience, delivery, client approach and many more things to consider. To be successful, you must have the appropriate knowledge and experience.

Again, “accidently”, I found out that my MBSR teacher was planning to go train on the OMF’s Mindfulness: Teaching in the Workplace course. I thought to myself, “it’s amazing if my teacher who is already so skilled and professional with great teaching experience is planning to train there, it must be very good and be a very strong program. I should train there too.”

I applied and thanks to my good luck and the OMF enrolment committee I was accepted to the course. I was unbelievably happy! I felt so lucky to be among the other students on the course. And I was not mistaken with my decision.

Training through Challenging Times

At the time of my enrolment, the end of 2022, there was the first year of full-scale war in Ukraine.

After the Russian invasion at the beginning of 2022, almost every day there were missiles attacks and lots of buildings were destroyed. At that time Ukrainian militaries did not have any weapons to protect us from those deadly rocket missiles and most of them were reaching all the targets.

Freezing winter arrived. The electricity and hydroelectric power stations were hit, and we were in our homes without enough electricity, heat supply, hot and cold water and no internet connection.

The mayor of Kyiv warned us it could be a complete electricity blackout. Now I realize that if you have electricity in your home, you can be the happiest person on the earth. I remember those days I was trying to find shops with petrol electricity generators to fill my thermoses with hot water to take it home.

All our OMF sessions are experiential with lots of group discussions, so you must be present exactly at the session time. At that time, only in some areas of Kyiv had mobile internet connection. I remember several OMF sessions where I was going out into the cold winter city streets trying to find mobile internet to fully participate in the OMF sessions.

That was not easy time for my studies, but my interest, commitment and motivation to participate in the OMF program was so strong that I was trying to find any opportunity and do my best to participate. I wanted to finish the program despite all challenges I had.

What were the benefits of the program for me?

I must say that this was one of the best training courses that I’ve recently participated in. I call it a mini-MBA in Mindfulness.

It gives you invaluable tools, hands-on knowledge, relevant research, case studies and how to be completely knowledgeable in delivering mindfulness programs in corporate settings.

Before the training I had lots of questions: how to tailor mindfulness curriculum for each client; what are the best session formats for corporates; how to handle various obstacles that might arise when approaching clients and delivering programs; how to make pricing competitive and a market offer, etc.

It gives you invaluable tools, hands-on knowledge, relevant research, case studies and how to be completely knowledgeable in delivering mindfulness programs in corporate settings.

OMF teachers take you step-by-step through the process, so you have complete knowledge of it.

As I mentioned, all the teaching was experiential. We constantly went to group discussions and shared our individual experiences. Every session was very inspiring. My group had around 25 participants from all over the world: UK, USA, Canada, France, Spain, Belgium, Slovenia, Turkey, Ireland, Hong Kong, Brazil, South Africa, Taiwan etc.

During the 8-month course, we had a chance to know each other well, share experiences and enrich each other’s learning. After finishing our studies, some students created teams and delivered mutual clients projects.

The OMF course gave me absolute confidence of approaching any clients and handling any issues that may arise during the mindfulness training delivery for any corporate settings.

My special gratitude goes out to all our team of teachers who delivered the program. All of them are extremely professional and have contributed a lot to my current experience and knowledge. The OMF course gave me absolute confidence of approaching any clients and handling any issues that may arise during the mindfulness training delivery for any corporate settings.

Straight after the studies during 2023, I approached new clients, educational platforms, mental health forums and conferences and successfully delivered various mindfulness trainings and workshops. Again, I am grateful and happy to be part of the OMF graduates’ community and using this invaluable knowledge in my everyday life.

Author Bio

Olexander Polyanchuk is a Project Manager at Alex Polin Mindfulness and Alex Polin HR Summit, a trained mindfulness teacher and head of Alex Polin Executive Search.

You can find out more about Alex and his work via his website or by connecting with him on Facebook.

Find out more about the OMF’s Mindfulness: Teaching in the Workplace training programme and apply to join the next cohort here.